


"You are as handsome as my dick, Yusuf"

by Gamebird



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Historical, M/M, language issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gamebird/pseuds/Gamebird
Summary: Yusuf learns an unusual word in Nicolo's language.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 20
Kudos: 174





	"You are as handsome as my dick, Yusuf"

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by me discovering on Wikipedia that in original Genoese/Ligurian, ‘penis’ is used as an intensifier much the way we currently use ‘ass’ (big-ass man, grown-ass woman, etc.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoese_dialect

They could barely understand one another, but they did their best. Nicolo’s actions spoke loudly enough for Yusuf to trust him and he was constantly learning more of his words.

Nicolo gestured down the road they’d been walking for some hours. “It is ___ long! Is it this way? Are you sure?”

Yusuf nodded. “What is that word you keep using? It is not ‘very’. It is something else.”

“Is it this way?”

“Yes. What is that word, ___?”

“Ah.” Nicolo repeated the word. Yusuf nodded. Without any shame, Nicolo gripped his crotch through his robes and shook his junk a few times demonstrably. He repeated the word.

Yusuf blinked at him uncertainly. In a different man, he would have accepted this explanation immediately. But Nicolo seemed so philosophically pure. Normally when learning a language, people asked for curse words first. The closest Nicolo wanted to that was ‘the God word for bad’ which Yusuf had decided meant either sin or damnation. For example, he had not asked how to say ‘penis’. Yusuf told him now, putting his hand to his own crotch and extending a finger for a phallus, then using the word.

Nicolo nodded enthusiastically, but he repeated his word for the organ instead of Yusuf’s. It didn’t make much sense in context, either. ‘This is a long-dick road’? ‘This road is as long as my dick’? “What does it mean? Big?” He drew his hands apart to a distance that exceeded any man’s length, and even a donkey would find respectable.

Nicolo colored a bit and clamped his lips together, shaking his head in embarrassment. “No, no, not me. Not mine.” After a pause, he put his hands apart about the same distance and said, “Big.” He moved them further apart. “___ big!” Yusuf nodded. Nicolo stooped to grab a rock from the road. “Heavy.” He mimed the stone’s weight. “___ heavy!” He acted as though it were too heavy to carry, and dropped it.

Yusuf nodded again. “So it is just ‘very’. But with your penis.”

Nicolo smiled and nodded. He lit up with an idea. “Another!” He pointed at himself and said a word Yusuf didn’t recognize. He tilted his head rakishly, smiled more handsomely than Yusuf had yet seen him do in a true ‘come hither’ look, and repeated the word. Then he dropped the act and pointed at Yusuf’s face. He repeated the word with the intensifier.

Yusuf blinked. “You are flirting with me. You think I am handsome?” Nicolo smiled and nodded and although that was gratifying, Yusuf knew it was just the polite agreement Nicolo gave whenever he didn’t have a clue what someone was telling him. ‘Flirting’ and ‘handsome’ hadn’t been words he’d learned yet, either. 

“You think I am handsome,” Yusuf repeated to his own astonishment. He indicated his own face, though he didn’t have the composure to adopt Nicolo’s lusty look from earlier. “Handsome,” he said, half seriously and half as a question.

Nicolo nodded. “___ handsome.”

Yusuf grinned. “You _are_ flirting with me, you Frankish bastard.”

Nicolo shifted his pack higher on his shoulder, looking around them at the landscape with a pleased expression and a lighter step.

“I am going to have to teach you more words,” Yusuf said with amusement. “‘I am as handsome as a dick’ does not translate appropriately in this one, although I definitely appreciate the sentiment.”


End file.
